The Early Middle Ages (from 300AD)

As the political unity of the Roman Empire dwindled in Western Europe during and after the 3rd century (ref. Civilization of the Middle Ages; Norman F. Cantor), its territories were settled by succeeding waves of "barbarian" tribal confederations, some of whom rejected the classical culture of Rome, while others, like the Goths, admired it and considered themselves the legatees and heirs of Rome. Prominent among these peoples in the movement were the Huns and Avars and Magyars with the large number of Germanic and later Slavic peoples. It must be stressed that the institution of the eastern half of the old empire still continued to function, if not prosper. East Romans thought of themselves as the heirs to the Roman legacy in all ways, and they also thought their version of Christianity was more legitimate than that of the Catholic west. Constantinople was one of the two capitals of the later empire, and was able to avoid capture by the barbarian tribes.

The era of the migrations is referred to as the Migration Period. It has historically been termed the "Dark Ages" by Western European historians, and as Völkerwanderung ("wandering of the peoples") by German historians. The term "Dark Ages" has now fallen from favour, partly to avoid the entrenched stereotypes associated with the phrase, but also partly because more recent research into the period has in fact revealed a complex culture (including sophisticated artistry); no one at the time thought of themselves as living in a "Dark Age". It is true that the prevailing political structures were less centrally organized in comparison with the preceding culture, but the political unity of the Roman Empire has yet to be matched even to this day.

The settled Roman populations were not killed off (greatly varying depending on place and time), the migrating populations altered established society, and with it, law, culture and religion, and patterns of property ownership. The Pax Romana, with its accompanying benefits of safe conditions for trade and manufacture, and a unified cultural and educational milieu of far-ranging connections, had already been in decline for some time as the 5th century drew to a close. Now it was largely lost, to be replaced by the rule of local potentates, and the gradual change in economic and social linkages and infrastructure. Roman land owners for example could not just pack up their land and move elsewhere, so they quickly changed their aliegances to the new local customs and kings, dropped the former pretenses of Roman citizenship and established new modes of dress, language and custom so that within a generation or two it would have been difficult to distinguish between a Roman and a barbarian.

This break-down was often fast and dramatic as it became unsafe to travel or carry goods over any distance and there was a collapse in trade and manufacture for export. Major industries that depended on trade, such as large-scale pottery manufacture, vanished almost overnight in places like Britain. The Islamic invasions of the 7th and 8th centuries, which conquered the Levant, North Africa, Spain, Portugal and some of the Mediterranean islands (including Sicily), increased localization by halting much of what remained of seaborne commerce. Thus, whereas sites like Tintagel in Cornwall had managed to obtain supplies of Mediterranean luxury goods well into the 6th century, this connection was now lost. The administrative, educational and military infrastructure of the Roman Empire quickly vanished, leading, among other things, to decreased literacy among the upper tiers (the majority of Rome's population were always illiterate) and the reduced governmental sophistication mentioned above.

A new order

Until recently it has been common to speak of "barbarian invasions" sweeping in from beyond Imperial borders and bringing about the end of the Roman Empire. Modern historians now acknowledge that this presents an incomplete portrait of a complex time of migration. In some important cases, such as that of the Franks entering Gaul, settlement of the newcomers took place over many decades, as groups seeking new economic opportunities crossed into Roman territory, retaining their own tribal leadership, and acculturating to, or displacing the Gallo-Roman society, often without widespread violence. Other outsiders, like Theodoric of the Ostrogoths, were civilized, though illiterate patrons, who saw themselves successors to the Roman tradition, employing cultured Roman ministers, like Cassiodorus. Like the Goths, many of the outsiders were foederati, military allies of the Empire, who had earned rights of settlement, including among others the Franks and the Burgundians. Between the 5th and 8th centuries a completely new political and social infrastructure developed across the lands of the former empire, based upon powerful regional noble families, and the newly established kingdoms of the Ostrogoths in Italy, Visigoths in Spain and Portugal, Franks and Burgundians in Gaul and western Germany, and Saxons in England. These lands remained Christian, and their Arian conquerors were soon converted, following the example of the pagan Frank Clovis I. The interaction between the culture of the newcomers, the remnants of classical culture, and Christian influences, produced a new model for society. The centralized administrative systems of the Romans did not withstand the changes for lack of a tax base, and the institutional support for large scale chattel slavery largely disappeared.

However beyond these areas of Europe were many people with little or no contact with Christianity or with classic Roman culture. Martial societies such as the Avars and the Vikings were still capable of causing major disruption to the newly emerging societies of Western Europe. The Christian Church, the only centralized institution to survive the fall of the western Roman Empire intact, was the major unifying cultural influence, preserving its selection from Latin learning, maintaining the art of writing, and a centralized administration through its network of bishops. The Early Middle Ages are characterized by the urban control of bishops and the territorial control exercised by dukes and counts. The rise of urban communes marked the beginning of the High Middle Ages.

Outside the de-urbanized remains of cities, the power of central government was greatly reduced. Consequently government authority, and responsibility for military organization, taxation and law and order, was delegated to provincial and local lords, who supported themselves directly from the proceeds of the territories over which they held military, political and judicial power. In this was the beginnings of the feudal system. The High Middle Ages would see the regrowth of centralized power, and the growth of new "national" identities, as strong rulers sought to eliminate competition (and potential threat to their rule) from powerful feudal nobles. Well known examples of such consolidation include the Albigensian Crusade and the Wars of the Roses.

This hierarchy of reciprocal obligations, known as feudalism or the feudal system, binding each man to serve his superior in return for the latter's protection, made for a confusion of territorial sovereignty (since allegiances were subject to change over time, and were sometimes mutually contradictory). The benefit of feudalism however, was its resiliency, and the ability of local arrangements to provide stable government in the absence of a strong royal power in a political order distinguished by its lack of uniformity. Territoriality was reduced to a network of personal allegiances.

In the east, the Eastern Roman Empire (called by historians the "Byzantine Empire"), maintained a form of Christianised Roman rule in the lands of Asia Minor, Greece and the Slavic territories bordering Greece, and in Sicily and southern Italy. The eastern emperors had maintained a nominal claim to rule over the west, reconquered by Belisarius, but this East Roman claim was a political fiction under Lombard rule and became strongly disputed from 800.

West Roman Empire of Charlemagne (Post-800)

Charlemagne was crowned emperor in Rome by the Pope on Christmas Day, 800; his rule briefly united much of modern day France, western Germany and northern Italy. For 200 years after Charlemagne's death, Europe was in conflict, with east and west competing for power and influence in the partly un-christianized expanses of far northern Europe, and power devolving to more localized authorities.

A Carolingian Renaissance

During Charlemagne's lifetime, however, as well as that of his son, Louis the Pious, the Frankish-ruled Holy Roman Empire experienced a flourishing of intellectual and cultural revival. During this period there was an increase of literature, the arts, architecture, jurisprudence, liturgical and scriptural studies. The period also saw the development of Medieval Latin and Carolingian minuscule, providing a common language and writing style that allowed for communication across most of Europe.

The High Middle Ages

From beginnings roughly about the year 1000, greater stability came to the lands of western Europe. With the brief exception of the Mongol incursions, major barbarian invasions had ceased. The advance of Christian kingdoms and military orders into previously pagan regions in the Baltic and Finnic northeast brought the forced assimilation of numerous native peoples to the European entity.

The "High Middle Ages" describes the expansionist culture and intellectual revival from the late 11th century to the beginning of the 14th. The High Middle Ages saw an explosion in population. In central and northern Italy and in Flanders the rise of towns that were self-governing to some degree within their territories marked a beginning for re-urbanization in Western Europe.

In Spain and Portugal, a slow reconquest of the urbane and literate Muslim-ruled territories began. One consequence of this was that the Latin-literate world gained access to libraries that included classical literature and philosophy. Through translations these libraries gave rise to a vogue for the philosophy of Aristotle. Meanwhile, trade grew throughout Europe as the dangers of travel were reduced, and steady economic growth resumed. This period saw the formation of the Hanseatic league and other trading and banking institutions that operated across western Europe. The first universities were established in major European cities from 1080 onwards, bringing in a new interest and inquisitiveness about the world. Literacy began to grow, and there were major advances in art, sculpture, music and architecture. Large cathedrals were built across Europe, first in the romanesque, and later in the more decorative gothic style.

The Crusades

Following the Great Schism, prime examples of the force of the divided cultural identities of Christendom can be found in the unfolding developments of the Crusades, during which Popes, kings, and emperors drew on the concept of Christian unity to inspire the population of Western Europe to unite and defend Christendom from the aggression of Islam. From the 7th century onward, Islam had been gaining ground along Europe's southern and eastern borders. Muslim armies conquered Egypt, the rest of North Africa, Jerusalem, Spain, Sicily, and most of Anatolia (in modern Turkey), although they were finally turned back in western Europe by Christian armies at the Battle of Tours in southern France. Political unanimity in Europe was less secure than it appeared, however, and the military support for most crusades was drawn from limited regions of Europe. Substantial areas of northern Europe also remained outside Christendom until the twelfth century or later; these areas also became crusading venues during the expansionist High Middle Ages.

Technology

During the 12th and 13th century in Europe there was a radical change in the rate of new inventions, innovations in the ways of managing traditional means of production, and economic growth. The period saw major technological advances, including the invention of cannons, spectacles and artesian wells; and the cross-cultural introduction of gunpowder, silk, compass and astrolabe from the east. There were also great improvements with ships and upon the clock. The latter advances made possible the dawn of the Age of Exploration.

The Late Middle Ages (circa 1300-1500)

The 14th century witnessed an economic decline that began with the first retrenchment after the long, gently inflationary rise of a unified economy that had been under way since the 11th century. The European climate itself was worsening, after the long Medieval Warm Period, leading to the onset of the Little Ice Age. In the Black Death, large areas of Western Europe lost around a third—in some places as much as half—of their population to disease, especially in the crowded conditions of the towns. Economic historians like Fernand Braudel have concluded that Black Death began during a recession in the European economy that had been under way since the beginning of the century, and only served to worsen it. As a consequence, it greatly accelerated social and economic change during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In Western Europe, the sudden scarcity of cheap labour provided an incentive for landlords to compete for peasants with wages and freedoms, an innovation that, some argue, represents the roots of capitalism, and the resulting social upheaval caused the Renaissance and even Reformation.

Politically, the later Middle Ages were typified by the decline of feudal power replaced by the development of strong, royalty-based nation-states. This consolidation did not decrease the frequency of war, the Late Middle Ages seeing such protracted conflicts as the Hundred Years' War between England and France. Participation in these wars weakened the eastern Christian nations in their confrontations with an increasing expanding Islamic world. Indeed, throughout this period the Byzantine Empire was in decline, having peaked in influence during the Early Middle Ages. After the Battle of Manzikert (1071), the former empire was reduced to a shell; it survived in a diminished and weakened form until 1453, and ceased to exist by the end of the Late Medieval period.

Christendom was increasingly divided in this period, notably during the 14th century. This troubled century saw both the Avignon Papacy of 1305-1378, also called the Babylonian Captivity, and the so-called Western Schism that lasted from 1378-1418. These divides resulted in greater loyalty to regional or national churches, and though lay piety rarely wavered, secular solutions, rather than religious ones, were increasingly sought for the social problems of the time. The Lutherans' split with Rome in 1517, and the subsequent division between Catholicism and Protestantism, is one more event in the changes around 1500 that signaled the end of the old order.

Throughout the Late Middle Ages, stresses such as the Great Famine of 1315-1317, the Black Death of 1348, and popular uprisings, particularly in the west, encouraged creative social, economic, and technological responses that signaled the end of the old medieval order and laid the groundwork for further great changes in the Early Modern Period.

Historiography

Middle Ages in history

After the Middle Ages ended subsequent generations imagined, portrayed and interpreted the Middle Ages in different ways. Every century has created its own vision of the Middle Ages; the 18th century view of the Middle Ages was entirely different from the 19th century which was different from the 16th century view. The reality of these images remains with us today in the form of film, architecture, literature, art and popular conception.

Medieval and Middle Ages

"Middle Age"

The term "Middle Age" ("medium ævum") was first coined by Flavio Biondo, an Italian humanist, in the early 15th Century. Until the Renaissance (and some time after) the standard scheme of history was to divide history into six ages, inspired by the biblical six days of creation, or four monarchies based on Daniel 2:40. The early Renaissance historians instead talked about two periods in history, that of Ancient times and that of the period referred to as the "Dark Age". In the early 15th Century it was believed history had evolved from the Dark Age to a Modern period and scholars began to write about a middle period between the Ancient and Modern, which became known as the Middle Age. This is known as the three period view of history.

The plural form of the term, Middle Ages, is used in English, Dutch, Russian and Icelandic while other European languages use the singular form (Frenchle moyen âge, Germandas Mittelalter). This difference originates in different Neo-Latin terms used for the Middle Ages before media aetas became the standard term. Some were singular (media aetas, media antiquitas, medium saeculum and media tempestas), others plural (media saecula and media tempora). There seem to be no simple reason why a particular language ended up with the singular or the plural form. Further information can be found in Fred C. Robinson: "Medieval, the Middle Ages" in Speculum, Vol. 59:4 (Oct. 1984), p. 745-56. The term "medieval" (traditionally spelled "mediaeval") was first contracted from the Latin medium ævum, or more precisely "middle epoch", by Enlightenment thinkers as a pejorative descriptor of the Middle Ages.

A medieval era can also be applied to other parts of the world that historians have seen as embodying the same feudal characteristics as Europe in this period. The pre-westernization period in the history of Japan is sometimes referred to as medieval. The pre-colonial period in the developed parts of sub-Saharan Africa is also sometimes termed medieval. Today historians are far more reluctant to try to fit the history of other regions to the European model and these terms are less often used.

Similar differences are now emerging in connection with the start of the period. Traditionally, the Middle Ages is said to begin when the West Roman Empire formally ceased to exist in 476. However, that date is not important in itself, since the West Roman Empire had been very weak for some time, while Roman culture was to survive at least in Italy for yet a few decades or more. Today, some date the beginning of the Middle Ages to the division and Christianization of the Roman Empire (4th century) while others, like Henri Pirenne see the period to the rise of Islam (7th century) as "late Classical".

The Middle Ages are often subdivided into an early period (sometimes called the "Dark Ages", at least from the fifth to eighth centuries) of shifting polities, a relatively low level of economic activity and successful incursions by non-Christian peoples (Slavs, Arabs, Scandinavians, Magyars); a middle period (the High Middle Ages) of developed institutions of lordship and vassalage, castle-building and mounted warfare, and reviving urban and commercial life; and a later period of growing royal power, the rise of commercial interests and weakening customary ties of dependence, especially after the 14th-century plague.